Throughout 2026, the Cittadellarte Journal hosts a series of interviews with collaborators of the Foundation, all invited to respond to the same set of questions. Cittadellarte in the Mirror - this is the name of the column - presents itself as an exercise in listening and self-reflection that cuts across different roles, practices, and sensibilities, offering a plural portrait of the Cittadellarte organism. The questions address some of the most urgent issues of our time—from social transformation to responsibility, from education to indifference, from the risks of artistic action to the possibility of reactivating empathy and function like a mirror: they do not seek definitive answers, but ask respondents to take a position, to expose themselves, and to question their own role in the present.

In this fourth installment, the mirror turns toward Alessandro Mondino, Head of Strategy and Institutional Relations of Biella Città Arcipelago, who (re)reads social transformation as a process made up of encounters, shared practices, and long timeframes. His responses traverse the relationship between the local and the global, risk as a necessary condition of artistic and political action, and the value of relationships as Cittadellarte’s living heritage. In a time marked by fatigue and closures, Mondino asserts the centrality of encounters between different subjects as a generative space capable of opening hybrid solutions where politics struggles to reach, and of transforming uncertainty into possibility.

As 2025 comes to an end, the word “transition” seems to have lost momentum, replaced by a widespread sense of fatigue and a return to logics of power, war, and closure. In this context, does it still make sense to speak of responsible social transformation, or do we need to change the language and rethink practices?
Transition has certainly lost strength in high-level politics, in mainstream media, and in dominant narratives, but I’m not sure the same is true at the territorial level, when we talk about the real - even small - problems of communities and individuals. Despite a context of disorientation and fatigue, and the great difficulty of seeing alternative political proposals and ready-made solutions, there is a widespread awareness and a strong need to come together to find new paths and new ways of addressing problems. More than changing the language, I believe we need to experiment and work on practices; language follows concrete actions.

This year as well, Cittadellarte has operated on both local and global levels—from China to borderland Europe, from the Mediterranean to East Asia. Bringing an installation or a demopraxic artwork into places charged with history, conflict, or symbolism exposes art to unpredictable interpretations. How important is it for the Foundation to accept this risk?
Even though I feel like an outsider in the art world, I believe that accepting risk lies in the very nature of the Foundation. Art has always been used and exposed to unpredictable readings; accepting that risk is essential, in my view, to continue evolving and also to motivate other actors working toward a responsible transformation of society. Growing contemporary complexity requires increasingly creative and hybrid solutions, born from encounters and exchanges between different subjects. Artists and social innovators are managing to spark transformations in contexts where politics struggles to understand and intervene. So, long live risk.

In 2025, what does it mean to educate for responsibility in a world where algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automation seem to increasingly reduce space for conscious human action and, in this sense, for authorship?
To me, it means staying in the present with attention and humility, grounding ourselves in strong principles while remaining very open when it comes to solutions. It’s important to understand the world around us so as not to view everything through outdated lenses, to accept complexity and difference, without forgetting that technologies have owners, interests, objectives, and impacts. In this sense, amid major technological transformations, the space for conscious action is certainly more complex, but still immense.

During your time at Cittadellarte, what do you feel you have unlearned? Is there a belief you would let go of today compared to the past?
I used to believe that proposals for change always had to be immediately clear and understandable to everyone. That’s not the case. If change is gradual and needs time, then it’s important to give space and trust - always with a critical spirit - to proposals we don’t fully understand or that don’t speak to everyone. Practice and time will transform them or make them comprehensible.

Let’s imagine Cittadellarte as a living organism. Which part feels most fragile today? And which feels more mature than you would have imagined?
The most fragile - or rather, most delicate - part, in my view, is the ambition and difficulty of working simultaneously on a global and local scale around complex issues. This challenge requires continually questioning languages, relationships, resources, and convictions. It’s a path rich in stimuli, but very complex. The most mature part is, for me, the enormous body of relationships and competencies activated over the years: a vast community of committed artists, activists, innovators, and politicians. An immense heritage.

We live in a time when we are daily exposed to images of extreme suffering, yet we often remain motionless. What kind of emotion is indifference? If indifference were an artwork, would you destroy it like breaking Pistoletto’s mirror?
I think indifference is a name we give to many different things—fear, incomprehension, escape, refusal, and much more. In the face of powerful images and experiences, there are human reactions that need to be understood. From indifference as an artwork, one could begin a journey to try to transform those emotions into something constructive. In my view, the mirror can be transformed by collectively deciding whether to break it or not.

In dominant and media-driven narratives of conflict, numbers often replace faces. What responsibility does art have in restoring humanity where political language erases it? Can art reactivate empathy without falling into the spectacle of pain? We should also consider that the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2025 is “Rage Bait,” referring to content created to provoke anger and outrage, especially on social media.
Art opens new perspectives and spaces for reading the present and engages with the deepest part of our humanity. It can help reactivate empathy, but it operates with timelines and languages different from those of news reporting or technocracy. Art also uses content that provokes anger and indignation, but with the aim of generating thought, doubt, and transformation. Art has a challenging language and independent channels; the problem lies in elitist drifts.

When you turn off the lights in your office, which emotion remains lit?
The beautiful fatigue of the walker. I am no longer where I was, nor where I will be tomorrow. Sometimes the beauty of the encounters and the places reached prevails; other times, the stumbles. I always feel (I am) transformed.